Tension
by BlueVase
Summary: Every marriage has its little fights, but what happens when Angela Turner picks up on the tension between her parents and has a nightmare as a result? Companion piece to Strife. TW: none, I think.


**I got an anonymous ask asking me if I'd ever consider writing a fic from the POV of either Angela or Teddy with tension/a fight between Patrick and Shelagh. Well anon, here you go, I hope I've delivered ;). Thanks to purple-roses-words-and-love for betaing.**

Angela knew something was wrong the minute she sat down at the dinner table. Her mother refused to look at her father, for one thing, and Timothy kept talking about his new project at school, only stopping to shovel more food into his mouth. His voice was strained, too happy.

Angela pushed her mashed potatoes from one side of her plate to the other, only taking a bite when her mother urged her to. The air was thick with something, and so was her throat; every spoonful of food seemed to grow in her mouth, till it was too large to swallow without becoming painful.

"Aren't you feeling well, Angel girl?" her mother asked her as Angela sat colouring a picture later in the evening, going over the same bit over and over again. She had played with Teddy, and that had eased her worries a bit, but now Teddy was asleep, and Angela had again become aware of that strange thing in the atmosphere, unnatural and strained.

"No," Angela confessed.

"How about I take you upstairs and tuck you in?" her mother proposed.

"Shelagh, I'm perfectly happy to do that for you, I…" her father started.

"Don't," her mother told him, brows knit behind her glasses. She picked Angela up and cupped the back of her head protectively with one hand, letting her fingertips travel over the curve of Angela's skull.

Angela sighed, put her arms around her mother's neck, and pressed her face against her mother's throat. She smelled lovely and familiar, and as her mother carried her upstairs, she felt the knot in her stomach unravel a bit. "Mommy, are you angry with daddy?" she whispered.

"A little bit, yes," her mother told her, not looking at her, putting her down on her bed and picking up Angela's nightdress from where it lay folded in the cupboard.

"Why?"

"Sometimes, people say hurtful things, Angel girl," her mother explained, helping her undress before tugging the nightdress over Angela's head and smoothing her hair, lovingly tucking a wayward strand behind the rosy shell of her ear.

"Are you waiting for him to say sorry?" Angela asked, picking up her bunny and stroking the threadbare ears.

"Yes."

"Will that take long?"

"I don't know. Your father is very stubborn, sometimes," her mother sighed, blue eyes moist.

Angela didn't know what stubborn meant, and she didn't dare ask, afraid her mother would start crying. She cupped her mother's face between her tiny hands and pressed a kiss to the tip of her nose. "Do you want Cuthbert the Second?" she whispered.

"Cuthbert the Second?" her mother asked, two worry lines etched between her brows.

"I always snuggle with him when I feel a bit sad," Angela explained, picking the rabbit from where it lay in her lap and holding it up for her mother to see, fondling its left ear.

"Well, I'll keep that in mind. For now, though, I think Cuthbert will be happier with you," her mother said, kissing Angela's brow and stroking her cheek with the pad of her thumb.

"Okay. I just don't want you to be sad," Angela said, feeling tears burn behind her own eyelids.

"We all have to be a little bit sad, sometimes. Don't you worry about me, though, dearest. I'll be just fine. You go and cuddle Cuthbert for me and sleep a bit, alright?" her mother proposed, tucking her daughter in and kissing her hand, stroking the small digits with her index finger.

"Okay."

Her mother shut off the lights, but left the door open a little bit, allowing the light from the hallway to pool into the room, keeping the blackness of utter darkness at bay.

Her eyelids were feeling very heavy when her father tiptoed in, pushing a lock of hair from her forehead and kissing the bit of newly exposed skin.

"You tickle," Angela murmured, touching her father's jaw with her fingers, feeling the sandpaper texture.

"Sorry, Angel girl. I thought you were asleep already," he whispered. Moonlight spilled into the room from where her mother hadn't closed the curtains completely. His eyes caught the light, and reflected it back till the irises twinkled like stars.

"Daddy, are you going to say sorry to mommy?" Angela asked, tucking Cuthbert under her chin.

Her father's eyes widened in surprise, and his eyes strayed to the window as he thought. "Did she tell you that she wanted me to?"

"I just saw she was sad. You behaved strangely at dinner. I just want things to be alright again," Angela murmured, feeling her throat grow thick again. She swallowed, her throat clicking audibly, and pressed her cheek against her toy rabbit. It smelled a bit like her mother, and like her father's shaving cream, and that mix was a good scent, comforting and sweet.

"They will be, darling. It's just that your mother is a bit stubborn, at times."

"She said you were stubborn."

A crooked smile played around her father's mouth. "Now did she?"

Angela nodded, then whispered: "What does that mean?"

"Stubborn? It means that you want things to go your way. It means that you think you are right, and don't want to change your opinion easily," he explained.

"Am I stubborn?"

"Sometimes."

"Really?"

"Yes. When you don't want to go to sleep, for instance," her father said, taking her hands in his and squeezing them gently.

"That's not true. I am a very good girl," Angela said, wrinkling her nose in indignation.

Her father laughed, and brought her hand to his mouth to kiss it. His stubbles tickled her skin, and she laughed, too.

"There. I like to see my girl smile," he told her, stroking her cheek before getting up. His knees popped and he winched as he stretched.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, Angel girl?"

"Why do people say mean things, sometimes?" she asked, fighting against the tiredness that threatened to take her hostage again, pushing her eyelids down against her will.

Her father took his time to answer her question. She was drifting off as he opened his mouth, and the soft cadence of her voice lulled her further. "Because they are afraid, or angry, or hurting themselves. Usually, they don't mean it that way. They just need to say sorry, and hug each other, and then things can become all right again."

"Hm," Angela said, snuggling closer to her bunny as her breathing evened out and her consciousness became delightfully woolly, before she fell asleep completely.

She awoke with her heart racing, throat dry as sandpaper, her hair plastered to her skull and neck. As soon as her eyes opened, the dream visions fled, became blurred and hazy things, shadows of her mind that would probably fall apart under close scrutiny. The fear, though, was still there, making the blood roar in her ears and every shadow seem like a monster with fangs as long as her arm, ready to strike.

Angela shivered, and grabbed her bunny's ears with a chubby fist, turning her knuckles white. She needed her parents.

She couldn't call for them, because that might wake up Teddy, and then they would be angry with her, and Teddy would be sad, whimpering and mewling, eyes shut tight whilst his face turned red.

No, if she wanted her parents, she would have to go to them. She clutched her darling rabbit closer to her chest, burying her nose in the fur that was once silky smooth but now matted with time, smelling her parents' scent in the material. She took a deep breath, then jumped from the bed, feet thundering over the wooden floor as she sprinted away from the bed, afraid that the thing that lurked underneath would snake out a tendril and grab her around the ankle, hauling her back to eat her.

She pushed the door of her bedroom open and flew along the hallway, only stopping when she reached the door of her parents' bedroom. She took a few shuddering breaths before gently lowering the handle and pushing the door open.

On tiptoes she walked past Teddy's cot, stopping when she was near and straining her neck to see him. She had to make sure that no shadow had gotten him and stolen him away. She didn't think that was the case – he was with their parents, after all, and monsters had a grudging respect for parents – but you could never be too sure. Teddy was there, tightly swaddled in a blanket knitted by Sister Monica-Joan, his chest falling and rising steadily. Angela stretched out her hand to touch him, to take his little hand in hers and blow on it to see him scrunch up his face in delight, then realised she would wake him and backed away.

By some miracle she hadn't woken her parents yet, so she tiptoed to the bed, to her mother's side. Her mother's glasses were on the nightstand, glittering in the moonlight like crystals.

Angela turned towards her mother, and felt her heart beat happily in her chest: her father had slung his arm around her mother, hugging her tight to him, his nose buried in her hair. Surely things were alright again if he was holding her like that, and if her mother had intertwined her fingers with his?

Angela studied her mother's face for a second. Without the glasses and with her hair down, she looked different yet familiar. There was the ghost of a smile playing around her lips.

Angela touched her mother's cheek. "Mommy?" she whispered.

Her mother came awake at once, blinking owlishly and then rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "Angela? What's wrong, darling?" she murmured, her accent – Timothy liked to call it her 'Scottish burr', but Angela didn't know what a burr was – thick.

"I had a bad dream," Angela confessed, and suddenly there were tears in her eyes.

"Come here," her mother said, pushing her father back to his side of the bed and slinging back the sheets so Angela could crawl into bed with her.

"Hm, what?" her father muttered, sitting up and staring ahead groggily.

"Your daughter had a bad dream," her mother whispered, picking Angela up and putting her between them, arms soft around her.

"A bad dream?" Her father was awake at once.

"Do you want to tell us about it?" her mother asked.

Angela sniffed, wiping a tear away with Cuthbert's ear. Her throat was a bit thick again, but not thick enough to make speaking painful. "I don't remember. I was just…"

"Yes?" her father asked, squeezing her hand and encouraging her to keep on speaking.

"I was afraid you would stay angry with each other," she confessed.

Her mother gave her father a look Angela didn't recognise, eyes moist and eyebrows knit, but the corners of her mouth tilted up a bit.

"Dearest Angela, your mother and I will never stay angry with each other. We have our fights sometimes, all people do, but we will always talk about it, and stop being mad," her father explained.

"So you've said sorry to each other? And hugged each other?" she asked, thinking of her father's words.

"Yes," her mother said, kissing Angela's temple and putting her head back on the pillow.

"Is that why daddy has a bit of lipstick on his chest?" Angela murmured, thinking of the red smear she had seen on her father's collar bones, peeking out of his pyjama tops.

"Something like that, yes," her father said, and she could see him smirk, even though her eyes were already falling shut and sleep was making her limbs heavy.

"Oh," she breathed, before closing her eyes completely and allowing sleep to overtake her. She knew there would be no more bad dreams, not with her parents' loving arms around her, keeping her safe.

Angela knew all was right again as she fell asleep, and her lips curled into a little smile.


End file.
